Mike Rouse – a.k.a. sodaGod – is the man. He is _el capitan_ of Machine Enema, a Halo-based “machinima”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima group. Of all the machinima producers out there right now, Machine Enema produces the best quality movies. Mike has written a number of really solid stories and then translates those into video that, quite simply, sparkles like none other. He introduces a number of ambient effects to give his movies a very unique feel. It’s often difficult to find good voice talent for machinima, but Mike has managed to land a number of excellent voice actors. Heck, Mike even does half the voices in most of his movies himself.
One of my favorite series currently is PIE. It’s about three super-enhanced warriors, one of which become possessed by a malevolent AI. It’s up to one of these warriors – ADAM – to stop him before he can destroy everything. There are four-and-a-half chapters available in this series at the moment. The chapter titled “Pestilence” falls between Chapters 2 and 3 and provides an alternate viewpoint. The… ‘half-chapter’ is titled Omicron and falls in as something of a prequel to the series. “Omicron” may actually be my favorite of the bunch, ironically _because_ it’s short yet tells a lot of story in short order. It _is_ required, however, to have seen the prior four chapters before watching Omicron; it doesn’t make quite as much sense without having that context.
I love Mike’s scripts – they’re always funny and witty while at the same time being powerful and moving. I can’t wait to see if he produces any more chapters in this series. He’s also running a series called Jungle Trigonometry, which seems to be something along the lines of a series of stream-of-consciousness explorations. It’s very, very random and strange. It’s not really my cuppatea, but I have to admit that there is a certain level of artistic beauty to the sketches that makes them enjoyable.